Stewart Brand, author
of Whole Earth Discipline,
is described on
the book cover as an
icon of the environmental
movement. He
actually isn’t and
doesn’t want to be. Brand (who, in full disclosure,
is a friend) has always been much more
of an iconoclast than an icon.

In Whole Earth Discipline, he combines
his deep concern for the environment, his
pugnacious search for windmills to tilt at, and his technological optimism to produce
an intriguing, confounding, utterly Brand-type
book. By that, I mean a full-throated assault
on conventional wisdom, laced with
enough ironic riffs and personal confessions
of his own past errors to disarm most critics.

Brand came to public attention 41 years
ago by publishing the wildly successful
Whole Earth Catalog, a practical guide for
back-to-the-land refugees from suburbia.
The catalog questioned virtually every attribute
of 1960s middle-class suburban America
and offered a telephone directory-sized,
annotated compilation of equipment for rural
self-reliance. Ultimately, the back-to-the-land
movement proved to be vanishingly
small, over-fond of drugs, and stuck in a historical
cul-de-sac.

In Whole Earth Discipline, Brand examines
and embraces the scientific basis of some of
the principal problems that scare the hell out
of environmentalists. Indeed, his bottom line
on global warming is among the bleakest I’ve
ever read, and it’s probably correct. The book
questions assumptions that most modern
environmentalists take for granted (such as
that a sustainable future will rely mostly on
renewable energy sources or that sustainable
diets will depend on organic crops) and proposes
solutions that make most environmentalists
gasp (such as nuclear power, genetically
modified foods, and urbanization as a
complete solution to population growth).

What makes this book different from the
embarrassing essays of faux environmentalists
like Patrick Moore and Bjorn Lomborg
(who come to conclusions similar to
Brand’s) is that Brand’s environmental values
are long-standing and sincere, and he doesn’t slant his ideas to boost his speaker
fees or to attract corporate consulting.

The environmental movement has made
such minimal progress in recent years on
major global challenges that a serious rethinking
is in order. And who better
to lead it than iconoclastic
Stewart Brand? That’s what
makes the book’s conclusions so
sad. His arguments are provocative
but unconvincing. The author’s
fluid prose and disarming
personal anecdotes are beguiling.
The chapters display breadth.
But the whole just doesn’t add up
to his conclusions.

For example, Brand embraces a nuclear-powered
future while dismissing the associated
weapons proliferation. A world in
which nuclear power contributes meaningfully
to reducing carbon-based fuels in the
next few decades is a world in which hundreds
of tons of plutonium are annually
shipped through the corrupt arteries of
commerce, and in which sophisticated nuclear
knowledge is very widely dispersed. How can one endorse nuclear power for the
world and not even mention Iran?

The answer, basically, is Brand’s trademark
technological optimism. He conflates
nuclear expansion with a nimble skip to
"Generation IV” reactors. (All
current reactors are Generation
II.) With a serious commitment,
Generation IV reactors might be
commercially available by the
2030s, by which time global
warming will have cooked our
goose if we haven’t already built
economy relying heavily on
solar energy, affordable storage,
and smart power grids.

Brand's discussion of how to deal with
the world’s growing population follows a
similar pattern. He believes that, because of
the power of urbanization, the world population
will level off at about 8 billion, “followed
by a descent so rapid that many will
consider it a crisis.” Brand is lonely in his
belief that the world’s population will peak
at 8 billion and virtually alone in forecasting
a precipitous decline (at least in the absence
of war, pandemics, or widespread starvation).
To urge environmentalists to shift our
emphasis away from trying to gain assistance
for family planning and women’s
rights to “softening the impact of the depopulation
implosion” gives new meaning
to “Hail Mary pass.”

Despite these problems, there is much to
admire in Whole Earth Discipline. Brand starts
every section with an open mind, and his is a
very bright and curious one. He introduced
me to several fascinating people I’d never
heard of, like Steven LeBlanc and Robert
Neuwirth, whose books I have now ordered.

That I draw radically different conclusions
from Brand’s after reading his book is
almost beside the point. His goal is to make
people rethink their premises, double-check
their data, and revisit their logic. In the introduction,
Brand writes, “My opinions are
strongly stated and loosely held.” This is a
book to be read with a critical, engaged intellect.
But, as Brand himself would tell you,
before forming any strong views on these
crucial global issues, be sure to read more
than one book.

Denis Hayes is president of the Bullitt Foundation.
He organized the first Earth Day celebration on April
22, 1970, and currently chairs the 180-nation 40th anniversary
Earth Day in April 2010. During the Carter
administration, Hayes was the director of the Solar
Energy Research Institute (now the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory).